SexFeed: Facebook Tightens Security, May Kick Out Streakers

by Lorna D.

The lack of privacy in social media is a major issue for many people, as sex blogger The Beautiful Kind recently illustrated. Facebook is one of the sites that have recently responded to such issues. Yesterday, FB announced a feature that allows individuals to recognize the device used to access their accounts, and alerts the user if an unknown device tries to hack them.

But, Facebook has fallen under a lot of fire for failing to protect users’ privacy. Concerns have been raised about users’ interests being displayed as public, sharing location on status updates, and loopholes that allow friends to view private chat conversations.

And, thanks to the prevalence of minors on Facebook, authorities in California have proposed a law that would ban sex offenders from the site altogether.

Perfectly reasonable—if lawmakers only included serious criminals on their sex offender registries. Many states today label an individual a “sex offender” for such offenses as streaking, visiting a prostitute, or urinating in public.

The majority of registered sex offenders are these kinds of “non-threatening” criminals. One Offender Registration Review board labeled only 5% of the registered offenders as actually “dangerous.” With the number of sex offenders exploding in recent years, sites like Facebook may experience a shortage of users if lawmakers continue to wave their ban-hammers.